Death Rule: Lost Code Mac OS

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Apple macOS X users with HP printers are left unable to print from their computers after Apple revoked a certificate that signed HP's print drivers.

Apple released macOS 10.12 Sierra on September 20, 2016. With the latest updates available GRAPHISOFT maintained compatibility of ARCHICAD 19.

The result was print drivers being mistaken on macOS X for malware, and user complaints springing up over the weekend.

Print drivers mistook for malware

As observed by BleepingComputer, when printing a document from a MacBook running macOS Catalina (10.15.7 (19H2)) to an HP printer, the job remains in print queue but does not complete. That's because the corresponding print driver is being mistaken as malware.

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Reports of macOS users with HP printers experiencing the issue emerged on Apple, HP forums, and of course, Twitter.

The problem seems to impact both macOS Catalina (10.15) and Mojave (10.14) users with HP printers.

Furthermore, the print queue shows a mysterious 'Encryption credentials have expired' message.

The issue stems from Apple having recently revoked the digital certificate installed on HP's printers via XProtect.

XProtect is a feature by which Apple can prevent Mac devices from running certain applications it no longer deems trustworthy.

Apple does so by revoking the cryptographic code-signing certificates associated with these applications.

'There is no central database of certs cancelled by XProtect, there's one for each OS version it seems, and Catalina and Mojave were selected in particular. Apple chose to revoke the HP driver cert, or perhaps was asked to do so by HP,' explained The Register.

How to resolve the issue?

macOS X users can resolve the issue by following a series of steps outlined below.

The advice specifically applies to HP OfficeJet models with wireless printing and the printer's web interface enabled.

  1. Remove the /Library/Printers/hp folder to delete any old drivers that are being incorrectly flagged as malware
  2. Open System Preferences on your macOS X and navigate to the Printers & Scanners area.
  3. Double-click on the printer and then select 'Printer settings.' and then click 'Show Printer Web Page...'

  4. Once on the printer's web page, follow the steps provided by HP's Knowledge Base to generate a new Self-Signed certificate for the device.

  5. This generates a new certificate for your HP printer with 10-year validity. Ignore the 'Not Secure' warning; that is typical for self-signed certificates.


  6. Now return to the Printers & Scanners area, right-click (Cmd+click) on your printer and select the 'Reset printing system...' option

  7. This will uninstall and remove the printer from the list. Now click the '+' icon to re-add it.

  8. Select the printer as it re-appears on the list. Make sure 'Secure AirPrint' is selected next to the 'Use' dropdown and click 'Add.'
    You may also use the 'IP' option to add the printer by its IP address should the 'Bonjour' (AirPrint) connectivity fail.

You should now be able to print from applications such as your web browser and Preview seamlessly to your printer.

The 'Encryption credentials have expired' message should also no longer appear in your print queue.

While SSL certificate expiry dates and revocations are essential security features, these can become a hindrance in legitimate use cases if not planned properly by the industry players.

In Apple's case, revoking HP's certificates without a heads up left very many users without a means to print and having to deal with confusing 'malware' alerts.

Update, Oct 30th 2020:

Apple reached out to BleepingComputer to clarify that the revoked certificates were an action undertaken by HP:
'We unintentionally revoked credentials on some older versions of Mac drivers. This caused a temporary disruption for those customers and we are working with Apple to restore the drivers. In the meantime, we recommend users experiencing this problem to uninstall the HP driver and use the native AirPrint driver to print to their printer,” said HP.

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Death Rule: Lost Code Mac Os 11

Of those two guarantees in life, death and taxes, death has dominated the headlines this year. While taxes in some parts of the world were delayed, 500,000 people have died from COVID-19 around the world so far, over 125,000 of whom were in the United States, and over 22,000 of whom perished in New York City, a mere 4-hour drive from where I live. And then there are the high-profile killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many other people of color.

So, without further comment on the sociological and epidemiological crises that we’re all facing, yes, death has been on my mind of late.

Then I saw a message on a private mailing list I’m on, asking for help after a member of an acquaintance’s family died unexpectedly in a boating accident. The guy who died was the sole admin of his Family Sharing account and hadn’t left shared passwords or shared security phrases, so the family members couldn’t access the administrative side of the account, including the billing info, which needed to be updated so the account wouldn’t be deactivated for lack of payment.

Death Rule: Lost Code Mac Os Catalina

Troublingly, when they worked with Apple support, the reps weren’t able to help, telling them unless they could figure out the password or otherwise gain access on their own, the account would go into a suspended state. They were worried they’d lose all their family shared data if that happened. I suspect this doesn’t happen all that often or Apple’s support reps would have known that the company has a policy for such situations. Since I’d never heard of this policy before, I figured it was worth sharing more broadly in the unfortunate event that someone needs the information therein.

The Apple support document, “How to request access to a deceased family member’s Apple accounts,” lays out the process and the necessary paperwork. The key is a court order that specifies:

  • The name and Apple ID of the deceased person
  • The name of the next of kin who is requesting access to the decedent’s account
  • That the decedent was the user of all accounts associated with the Apple ID
  • That the requestor is the decedent’s legal personal representative, agent, or heir, whose authorization constitutes “lawful consent”
  • That Apple is ordered by the court to assist in the provision of access to the decedent’s information from the deceased person’s accounts

I suspect that acquiring such a court order would be time-consuming and most easily done in conjunction with a lawyer. Once you have it, contact Apple support and be clear about what you need, the fact that you have a court order, and that you’re working in accordance with this support note.

In the particular example I gave above, the family is still waiting for their state to fulfill their request for a court order two weeks after it was filed, in part because it took some time to get the official death certificate. Luckily though, they discovered that they could work around the problem by having each member of the family remove themselves from the family plan on their own devices. After that, they were able to create a new family plan and add everyone back to it.

Two other notes. First, just as when the FBI requests help with getting into a criminal’s locked iPhone, Apple is very clear about how it cannot break passcode encryption, saying:

Lost Code Horse

Please note that devices locked with a passcode are protected by passcode encryption, and unless the next of kin knows the device passcode, Apple will not be able to remove the passcode lock on the device without erasing it.

So you might be able to get Apple to help sufficiently to erase a deceased family member’s devices, but there’s no way to access the information on that device. It’s conceivable that you could restore an iCloud backup to a new or erased device once you have access to the deceased person’s Apple ID, but I don’t know for sure if that’s possible.

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Second, while boating accidents are a particularly unexpected way to go (they account for only 0.02% of deaths in the US), it’s only sensible to plan for a similar eventuality. Several years ago, Joe Kissell wrote a tremendously helpful book on the topic, Take Control of Your Digital Legacy, and introduced it in TidBITS with “Aunt Agatha Ponders Her Digital Legacy” (30 January 2017). In the book, Joe walks readers through the thinking necessary to create a digital inventory of your online accounts, purchased media, software, personal data, and cryptocurrency. If you make such a digital inventory, you can rest easy knowing that your family won’t have extra work in the event that you die without warning.